Will Microsoft steal my Windows 7? Why I'm worried.

Will do!

To those considering Linux: I have been running Zorin 9 for a few weeks now. I'm on it 90% of the time. I have not found anything yet that I can do on Windows that I cannot do on Zorin (and easily). It is the most W7-like Linux OS yet. updates are a breeze. They come as needed, and usually install in a few minutes, without a restart. Oh, well, ok the games are better on Windows. And the wallpaper. And I still do my music creation on a separate, dedicated W7 Pro machine. But the future holds options there as well. I have no doubt that I will fairly soon view Windows 7 as an occasional diversion. A nostalgic lookback to a time when Microsoft was more innocent, and less conniving.

Thanks for the suggestions re VMWare and Zorin 9. I downloaded Virtual Box, but haven't given it a shot yet. I'm likelier to experiment first with a Linux VM under Win 7 than with a Win VM under Linux.

MS has done me a favour, I started getting bored with Windows a few year's ago. After doing a clean install of 10, Then 8.1 and seeing the 'spyware options' i decided to install Linux Mint 17.2 on my lappy.
When support for Windows 7 end's i'll put linux on my desktop too.

Layback Bear said:

It's simple to me.

Microsoft is Microsofts biggest competitor. That is because Microsoft has over 90% of the market operating systems except phones.

I think you may have back-handed answer the question...

In my view Win 10 is nothing more than MS trying to gain more of the exploding smart phone market..
Win 10 has the same looks and feel of their struggling phone.

Win 10 may not be so much for us but for youth receiving their 1st computer. When youth gets ready for their first smart phone they will choose a phone operating system they are already familiar with ie Windows.

I couldn't resist the experiment: I swapped out my boot drive, installed Linux Mint on a fresh HD, splurged for a new Win7-64 license from Newegg, and have spent much of the last weekend configuring a virtual Win 7 machine as a VirtualBox guest under Linux.

My impressions so far, for anyone contemplating a similar path:

Mint 17.2 is much more mature than I'd expected. It ran my nVidia card like a pro from the start, despite Linus Torvalds' past complaints about nVidia, and recognized my printer.

I had a tougher time making a Win7 VirtualBox guest run on a Linux host than I'd had configuring a Linux guest on a Win7 host. I had to change the virtual drive from SATA to IDE to get Win7 to install at all, and also had to configure drivers from a not-well-described VBoxGuestAdditions.iso to make the video work.

I had to fight to make a scanner work under Linux, and was horrified that an experiment with the Linux Chrome browser totally crashed the UI. I'd never expected that to happen in a Unix-based system.

I'm not sure where I'll go from here. I know Win 7 way better than I know Linux, and would say I got more done with less effort on my Windows 7 only computer. I face a steep learning curve to become a daily Linux user, but think the handwriting may be on the wall for my relationship with Microsoft, for the reasons described in the opening message of this thread.

If I do go back to all-Windows 7 computing, at least I'll know what ship I can jump into when the Win7 support cycle ends in 2020.

ignatzatsonic said:

Adams Seven said:

I'm not sure where I'll go from here. I know Win 7 way better than I know Linux, and would say I got more done with less effort on my Windows 7 only computer. I face a steep learning curve to become a daily Linux user, but think the handwriting may be on the wall for my relationship with Microsoft, for the reasons described in the opening message of this thread.

If I do go back to all-Windows 7 computing, at least I'll know what ship I can jump into when the Win7 support cycle ends in 2020.

Good on you for experimenting.

I haven't even looked at Linux since about 1996, but they were saying even then that it was just about ready for the desktop. Har-de-har-har-har.

I'm pretty much where you are. Not amused with Win 10 as it is now. Fearing a Linux learning curve. Faced with Win 7 end of support. I'm even having occasional Apple thoughts pass through my mind, which hasn't happened since about 1996 either.

I'm hoping, perhaps foolishly, that the Windows 10 situation as of say April 2016 will be considerably different than it is today. I mean as regards the confusion, speculation, and consternation surrounding licensing, retail licensing, moving to new hardware, updates, security, "spying", and the rest of it.

You might want to give Linux another look - there has been huge progress in the last few years...